Mobile electronic devices are ever increasing in popularity. While these devices continue to evolve with an ever increasing list of features and capabilities, they still suffer from a long-standing problem: their vulnerability to the elements. These devices are susceptible to damage from general wear and tear, most noticeably the scratching of the devices' bodies and screens. The devices are also vulnerable to damage from moisture and dust. Protective cases have therefore been developed to protect them from these elements.
Conventional protective cases offer somewhat enhanced face, side, and back scratch and shock protection for the mobile electronic device, but leave the screen, switches, and ports (e.g., headphone ports, power ports, data ports, etc.) exposed to the environment. Some models may include a screen protector that may be applied as a separate component from the protective case. As these screen protectors are not an incorporated component of the product, however, they protect the screen from scratching, but they do not protect the mobile electronic device from moisture or dust. Other conventional protective cases may provide some protection against moisture and dust, but only for the electronics and not the screen.
Protective cases that do provide moisture and dust protection for the complete device may not allow for view and/or use of the device's touch screen when the device is in the protective case. More adept conventional protective cases may allow a user to view and use the device's touch screen when the device is inside the protective case, but are large and cumbersome, turning a small and, some would say, elegant mobile electronic device into a large, inelegant, plastic-covered device.
Some of the more adept conventional protective cases protect ports (e.g., headphone ports, power ports, data ports, etc.) of the mobile device with loose rubber plugs or rubber plugs attached to tethers. Typically, the plugs insert in the ports to seal the ports from water and dust ingress. The rubber plugs rely on friction from the mobile electronic device's ports to hold the plugs in place. This often results in loose plugs or in blocked ports from, for example, plugs breaking off from their tethers.
In addition, when a plug at an end of a rubber tether is unplugged from a port, the tether is left hanging freely from the case. The hanging tether may catch on objects in the environment of the mobile electronic device and brake off. Also, in some protective cases, a user must continually hold the tether open with their fingers for continued access to the port because the rubbery tether resists pivoting and is biased towards getting the plug back in the port. This is inconvenient.